Yangzhong Arrival

On our first full day in Yangzhong we ventured out to find the Biens.  Toured the school (our home for the next 4 months) and hit the local grocery store, in hopes of finding some comfort food. 

On our way out to find the Biens, Alan spotted something he was dreaming of seeing while we were here in China. Bamboo Scaffolding! 

Alan's long pursued bamboo scaffolding

Lucky for us we have great liaisons that showed us a good market on our first evening in the city. We showed the Biens the next day. It is very different then the markets in the States.

The Supermarket

The first main difference is walking in. There is a worker watching the door. He or she hands you a orange bag to stick your purse or backpack into and locks in up for you to carry around in your cart while you are shopping. If your bag has water or is to large you must stick your bag into a provided locker. Then you take the escalator up stairs to get the cart.

An escalator for shopping carts

This market is two floors. The second floor is all housewares goods. Towels, Cleaning supplies, rice cookers, washing machines, sheets, tupperware all can be found on the second floor. The first floor is food. All kinds of food. Some food that is sort of the same as american food and other that is not even close, like pig hoof and chicken feet. No true milk or cheese or butter! 

Alan riding down the magic escalator that locks your cart into place when you are going down.

Another main difference is when purchasing produce. You go pick the produce you want and take it over to a clerk in the department. He then weighs them and puts a price sticker on them. When you get up to the check out counter the clerk doesn't weigh them.

Heidi weighing potatoes

Below are some of the yummy treats we bought! 

Moon Cake

Moon Cakes!

Cheerios come two bags in one box

Later in the day we got a tour of our school from our Liaison. Alan and I have two liaisons, Mary and Grace. They are both english teachers at our school and teacher maids- or liaisons.

Our office is very nice. There are three desks and two computers. The only problem we see is the computer is in Chinese characters. 

campus

The view from our balcony

The library/not sure what else building

The cafeteria building

One of the school classrooms

Our tour of the school was wonderful. It was nice to see where we'd be teaching for the next four months. We headed out to explore more of Yangzhong and came upon a little stream. 

Unfortnattly the stream had some black pollution being dumped into it causing the stream to smell pretty bad. It was still a pretty walk though. 

Can you see the black stuff running into the stream?

bikes, trikes, scooters and cars.

 Most of the streets in Yangzhong look like this. Lined with bikes and cars everywhere. We ate lunch/dinner at the grocery market. They had what we assumed to be pizza. It looked delicous. However it had cabbage and other interesting flavors on it. It wasn't very good. We nor the Biens finished it. 

Pizza!  With cabbage :(

It was a great first day in Yangzhong. We are feeling a little homesick but as we get settled into our apartment and find our way around town. It is starting to feel more like home!